


Prisons

by eponine119



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponine119/pseuds/eponine119
Summary: They make their own cages.
Relationships: Kate Austen/James "Sawyer" Ford
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Prisons

Prisons  
by eponine119  
August 1, 2020

They're lying together in his tent. Sawyer's hand casually strokes through Kate's hair as she lays against him. He knows that it won't be long before she pulls away, to go back to her own tent, as she has every night. He supposes he understands it well enough. 

“Y'ever gonna tell me what you did, Freckles?” he murmurs, and feels the way her body tenses against his. He keeps stroking, expecting her to bolt. “I know you were some kinda fugitive from justice.” 

“I didn't do anything, James,” she says, and he thinks about how she only calls him James when she's ticked off at him. He kind of figured she would be. 

“You're innocent. Somethin' like that.” He thinks he can feel her pulse racing. 

“Something like that,” she agrees. 

He sighs. “What is it you're innocent of?” He expects her to pull away, get up and leave. She doesn't, but she doesn't answer, either. “We ever get rescued, you're headed to the big house. You ever think about that?”

“Yes. I think about it,” she says, and there's anger in her voice. 

“Ain't nothin' to be afraid of,” he says. “Prison ain't so bad.” 

“Is that experience talking?” she asks, and he must hesitate a moment too long because she picks up her head, rising up to look at him. 

He gives her a rueful smile. She frowns at him, and he sees he's made a calculated misstep. She's looking at him like she's wondering who the hell she's been sleeping with. But he's never been anything but honest with her. He's the most honest liar he knows. His fingers trail down her spine and she shivers, and it's not because it's cold. 

“Go on then,” he says, inviting her to take her leave. He wonders if this is the thing that will break them up. Not that they have much between them beyond this. And he suspects Kate won't dump him while there's no doctor to go runnin' off to. She doesn't seem to like to be alone. 

“Tell me,” she says. 

He tips his head and gives her a grin. “Only fair for sharin' time to go both ways,” he points out. 

“Then tell me about prison,” she says, and settles down against him. Her lips brush the skin of his chest. Like it's a bribe. 

“Worst part's the lack of freedom,” he says. “Eyes on you, watchin' all the time. Rules. Go here, do that. But routine's not so bad. They got a library.” 

“That all you care about, James? Books?” Her tone is harsh. He's fascinated by how she's terrified by the thought of it. He doesn't remember ever really being scared. He was too angry to feel anything else. “I can't.” 

He sighs again and holds her a little bit tighter. “You stayin' on this island then, when the rescue boats come?” 

“No,” she says strongly. 

“Maybe the trial'll go your way then. You'll get off.” 

“I can't go on trial,” she says, and fidgets in his arms like a trapped animal realizing she's in a cage. 

He thinks back. The trial was humiliating. Cassidy on the stand, this woman he'd lived with and had said he loved. Telling all the deep-down dirty secrets of his life. Putting them on public record. “No trial if you plead guilty, sweetheart,” he says, not quite gently enough. 

“I didn't do it,” she insists again. 

He gathers up her hair into a bunch in his hand and holds it. “Only guilty girls run, Kate.” He looks into her eyes, and he asks himself why he's pushing her so hard. It's not just because he wants to know. Maybe it's because he's screwed her and fallen asleep with her in his arms so many times it's gotten to be a habit, and he still doesn't know a damn thing about her except that she can climb trees, she's cute, she hates being left out of things, can't make up her mind, cares too deeply about people, and probably because of that, sometimes she likes him. 

She smacks his hands away. He thinks about reaching for her, holding her til she stops fighting him and herself, but he doesn't move. He lies there watching while she catapults off him, pulling on her t-shirt and her underwear, carrying the rest of her clothes and her shoes as a bundle. Something like a sob comes out of her as she clears the flap of his tent. 

He wonders if Jack knows what she did. If she told him. Based on that performance, he doubts it, but it's hard to know for sure. 

He pulls on his jeans and steps out into the cool night air, wishing he still had a pack of smokes. Looking out at the still, quiet camp, he plops down into his chair and sighs again. The ocean waves murmur and over his head, the stars are bright and white. 

No one here knew about him. He had a clean slate and he just blew it by telling her. By morning it'll probably be all over camp: Sawyer, the ex-con, not exactly a surprise. 

The island is his prison now. His punishment. He's known that since they crashed. 

He told her because she was starting to feel like shackles, too. Looking over at her tent, he wonders why he doesn't feel free. 

(end)


End file.
